


Mechanic

by JupiterMelichios



Series: Tumblr Fics [25]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Angst, BDSM, Challenge Response, Cyborgs, Dom Tim Drake, Fade to Black, Ficlet, Hurt, Kink Shaming, M/M, Masochism, Mentioned Talia al Ghul, Oblivious Jason Todd, POV Jason Todd, Painplay, not nearly as dark as the tags make it sound, wireplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:07:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24493993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JupiterMelichios/pseuds/JupiterMelichios
Summary: “I’m already paying you everything I’ve got just to keep up with my repairs. I don’t have proprietary tech money just lying around.”“Reduced rate if you let me test it on you. No one else is desperate or stupid enough to let me spend hours disassembling their augs and putting them back together again, but until I test it on a human I don’t know whether the biocomponents work like I want them to.”Sweet robot Jesus. Hours of letting Drake torture him in the name of science. Hours of having to sit still while he soldered wires that were connected directly to Jason’s nerves. Hours of being taken apart, all his inner workings laid bare and vulnerable…
Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Series: Tumblr Fics [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/136539
Comments: 18
Kudos: 119
Collections: JayTimWeek





	Mechanic

**Author's Note:**

> For JayTim week day 6 - Cyberpunk
> 
> Some people may not know, since it's no longer canon as of Nu52, but pre-52 Roy was fostered by a Navajo family and grew up in the Navajo nation before Olly took him in, and his tatoos were designed to honor that part of his upbringing. It wasn't always (or even often) handled particularly well, but I was still sad to see that entire backstory get replaced with a generic skull tatoo and a trucker hat in 2011, so this fic does briefly reference his OG backstory.

For the record, Jason is absolutely aware of how fucked up it is.

He’s pretty sure he’s not the only one, hell if he spent some time digging on the net he’d probably find a whole subculture, but he never does, because he’s fully aware of how fucked up it is. And he’s not sure he could cope if it turns out he was wrong, if he’s the only one who…

So yeah. He’s not looking. Better not to know either way than have to face absolute proof that he’s just that much of a _freak_.

At least his mechanic is too much of a professional to mention it.

“Connection’s come loose,” Drake says, wiping coolant off his fingers with a rag. “That’s why you’re not getting any grip strength. It’s high up, close to the join. It’s going to hurt. You sure you don’t want me to knock you out?”

“You know my terms, doc.”

Drake shrugs. “Suit yourself. Try not to scream too much, you’ll scare away my other customers.”

Jason taps the metal plate that makes up the left half of his jawbone. “Doesn’t open if I tell it not to. There’s gotta be some perks to losing my good looks after all.”

“I don’t know. Kind of suits you.”

“You know I can’t afford to tip you, right?” Jason asks. “I mean, I appreciate the attempt and all, but I know what I look like.”

Drake shrugs. “I’m a bio-mechanic. I appreciate craftsmanship.”

“If it was so great it wouldn’t keep breaking.”

“If you weren’t so rough on it, it wouldn’t keep breaking. Even MizGhoul can’t make idiot-proof augs.”

“I don’t need idiot proof, I need bullet proof.”

“So get a forcefield like everyone else.”

“Invent me a forcefield that doesn’t slow me down and drain power faster than my body can produce it. If I don’t have power then these-” he gestures to his left arm and leg “-are just 200lbs of dead weight.”

“I’ve had some ideas about that, actually.”

“I’m already paying you everything I’ve got just to keep up with my repairs. I don’t have proprietary tech money just lying around.”

“Reduced rate if you let me test it on you. No one else is desperate or stupid enough to let me spend hours disassembling their augs and putting them back together again, but until I test it on a human I don’t know whether the biocomponents work like I want them to.”

Sweet robot Jesus. Hours of letting Drake torture him in the name of science. Hours of having to sit still while he soldered wires that were connected directly to Jason’s nerves. Hours of being taken apart, all his inner workings laid bare and vulnerable…

He’s getting hard just thinking about it.

“I’ll consider it,” he manages, because if he says yes too quickly, Drake will think it’s a double-cross.

Drake hums an acknowledgement, and picks up a screwdriver barely bigger than a toothpick.

It’s definitely not helping him get his dick back under control. He knows that screwdriver well. That’s the one Drake uses for the stuff that _really_ hurts.

Drake slides his mask back into place, and leans into the flayed open workings of Jason’s arm. “You’ll feel a little prick,” he says, because he’s a dick, and then Jason has to lock his jaw to keep from yelling the place down as Drake begins to unscrew one of the neural connectors.

There’s things you can do to stop it from hurting. Go to an officially licensed mechanic, for starters, one who’s got an anesthetist and a monetary incentive to be careful. There’s other things, neural implants, or patches, or just a good dose of something that makes the world go fuzzy at the edges, but Jason wouldn’t take any of them even if he could afford them.

He lives for these moments, the moments when it’s nothing but him and his central nervous system and all the horrible horrible things Drake can do to it, because there are days it’s hard to be sure what’s real, days when it’s hard to know if he’s even human anymore, but none of his paranoia or laundry list of mental health problems or his suspicion about whether he can ever really trust augs made by someone like Talia mean anything in the face of real pain, pure white-hot blank out your brain and leaving you shaking like a leaf in a thunderstorm _pain_.

He’s not sure when it went from grounding to hot as hell, but however ashamed he is of his fucked up kinks it’s just one more reassurance that he’s human, that he’s real, because only a human could do something as fundamentally stupid as developing a fetish for being tortured.

He made a bargain with himself, way back at the start, that he was never going to let his augs get damaged on purpose, and he’s stuck to that, but he’s maybe not as careful as he could be.

Roy, bless his heart, doesn’t say anything, even though Jason’s augs need about five times as many repairs as Roy’s do. Roy’s arm even still has the designs his foster parents had etched into it for him, the snake and the scorpion in that distinctive geometric art style.

Maybe that’s why Roy’s so careful of them. They were gifts, from people who loved him enough that they’d saved every penny to buy them even though he was a skinny little one-armed white boy who’d been pretty much literally dropped on their doorstep. They might not have paid for the one he wears now, but his foster-dad had still decorated it for him, just so he’d know they were with him wherever he went.

Technically Jason’s augs were gifts. Talia hadn’t asked him to pay for them at least. But she hadn’t done it out of love for him, and he hadn’t had a say in it. He remembers pain, and everything going black, and then next thing he knows he was waking up on Talia’s work bench, too drugged to feel anything, with Talia’s impassive mask staring down at him.

Maybe that’s why he likes the pain so much. Maybe it’s just because if it hurts, there’s no way anything can be done to him without his knowledge.

Maybe he’s just sick.

Either way, Drake doesn’t seem to have noticed yet at least. He’s hoping he never does - finding a good mechanic who won’t ask too many questions isn’t easy, and the last two had both asked Jason to stop coming around when they noticed his reaction. The one before that had had their head put through a plate glass window by Black Mask for helping him.

“Hold really still,” Drake says, and then does something that sends a white hot line of agony shooting up Jason’s shoulder and into his neck.

Even with his jaw locked shut Jason can’t keep from making a noise, sharp and high like a frightened animal. Drake catches his eye, and it’s impossible to tell through the mask but Jason thinks he might be _grinning_.

God damn it his cock does not need that encouragement.

“Good boy,” Drake says, and yeah he’s definitely grinning behind his mask, the mean little bastard.

Jason unlocks his jaw long enough to grit out a, “fuck you.”

“Now now, is that any way to talk to the person who’s got a screwdriver in your arm?” Drake asks, sounding extremely smug. “If you’re not careful, I’ll think you don’t like it.”

Jason feels his face go red, and prays to any gods that might be listening that there isn’t enough of his cheek left on that side for Drake to see it. “I don’t like it. What kind of sick… _Ah_!”

Drake puts down the fucking tiny screwdrive and flips his mask up, apparently just to make sure Jason can see that he’s being laughed at. “What was that?”

Well he’s not yelling or throwing Jason out at least. Maybe this is still salvageable. “Okay, fine, I like it. Not your problem. You do your work, I pay you, just like normal.”

Drake raises an eyebrow. “There’s a word for someone who gets paid to hurt masochists for kicks, and it’s not mechanic.”

“It’s not for kicks! It’s really busted, you can see that. The fact that I enjoy-”

“Take your dick out.”

“-does… What?!”

“Take your dick out.”

“No! Why…? You know what, I don’t even care. You think there’s a market for footage of a cyborg being forced to jack off while being tortured?!”

“Well I’d buy it. But no,” he adds, before Jason has a chance to react. “I’m not recording in here. I’m the mechanic you go to when you really _really_ don’t want questions asked. My clientele aren’t the sort to appreciate surveillance.”

“So what, this is some kind of fucked up prank?!”

Drake sighs and steps between Jason’s legs. Up close he smells of coolant and WD40. “Are you always this stupid?” he asks. “You think I offer to do custom state of the art tune ups on the cheap for all my customers?”

“That was… Wait, was that you asking me on a date?!”

“Yes.”

“A date where you take my augs apart and torture me?”

“I’m not the dinner and drinks type.”

“What if I am?” And okay, obviously Drake experimenting on him is basically his ideal date but that doesn’t mean he can’t like candlelight and romantic meals as well. He has layers.

“How about this; If you don’t get your dick out right now, I _won't_ let you jack off while I work on you.”

Put like that… Jason does as he’s told.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love


End file.
